


Come Here Often?

by Anweyr



Category: Radiant Historia
Genre: Bad Pick-Up Lines, Bad Puns, F/M, Porn, Raynie being Raynie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:17:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4942903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anweyr/pseuds/Anweyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raynie tries her very best to proposition Stocke. He doesn't really see the point, given they're already living together...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Here Often?

Stocke pulled his chair up to the table, hearing the dull scrape on the wood floor, and smiled. In the the mess hall, the clang of dishes and chatter of the soldiers tended to drown out small noises. It was such a simple thing, a quiet morning, but all the more precious for it.

Of course, the company was part of it, he thought, and smiled fondly across the table as he lifted his mug of tea. Raynie was already at the table, spreading butter and jam on a breadroll. “Nice shoes, wanna fuck?” she asked him cheerfully.

Stocke sighed and put down his mug before he’d so much as sipped his tea. “I’m not wearing any shoes right now.”

“I know! That makes everything so much easier.” She popped a bit of bread into her mouth, then pushed a plate at him. “There’s bacon, too,” she said around her mouthful. “You wanna strip?”

“I had smelled it,” he informed her. “And su-” Stocke stopped. Raynie was grinning a little too widely.

He mentally replayed the last thing she said, then narrowed his eyes at her. “Stop that.”

She pouted exaggeratedly. “Awww, where’s your sense of fun?”

“I must have left it in my other jacket.” He reached for the bacon.

“Too bad, this one’s very becoming on you,” Raynie said regretfully, and sipped her tea. “Of course…”

Stocke let her finish in her own time, neatly slicing the bacon into bite-sized pieces with his belt-knife before spearing a piece on the end.

“Of course, if I were….” She trailed patterns on her plate with her own knife, and looked at him sidelong. ” If I were on you, I’d be coming too.”

Stocke glowered. “Another word and I’m taking the rest of the bacon,” he warned her.

“So you  _do_  wanna stri-” Raynie began, triumphantly. “Hey! Wait! I didn’t get any!”

“You certainly won’t if you keep this up,” Stocke told her dryly.

* * *

The rest of the morning was spent performing odd chores around the house. She made a few ribald remarks about his shoe size as she cleaned their boots, but he ignored them, and eventually she resumed talking like a normal person.

He caught her squinting oddly at him as he collected laundry. The task involved a lot of fishing things out from under the bed, where Raynie tended to stash dirty clothes.

“Something wrong with your eye?” he inquired.

“Yeah,” she agreed, and grinned. “I just can’t take them off you.”

Stocke wadded up a shirt and threw it at her.

* * *

Laundry in Skalla was hot, tiresome work. Water had to be carried from the nearest well – a good mile from their house – and then the clothes needed to be washed, wrung out, and then hung out to dry on the line behind their home. The basket of wet things was, Stocke thought, almost as heavy as the water jugs themselves, and he didn’t bother to hide his noise of relief as he collapsed into a chair.

“You must be tired,” Raynie said sympathetically, and started to give him a shoulder rub.

“Thanks,” he began appreciatively.

“-because you’ve been running through my head all day!”

Stocke glared at her, but he was tired, and the shoulder-rub was too welcome to sore muscles for him to abandon it just yet.

“Did you just come out of the sun?” she asked him, and from her tone, he could already guess what came next. “Because you’re hot.”

He groaned. “Please talk in something other than terrible pick-up lines.”

She was quiet for a moment, although her hands continued to knead and pull soothingly. “Okay. If you want. What should we talk about?”

Stocke shrugged.

“No ideas, eh? Well….” She plunked down in the chair next to him. “Why don’t you sit on my lap and we’ll see what comes up?”

It wasn’t even worth sighing at this point, especially since she seemed to take it as encouragement “You’re missing the necessary anatomy,” he informed her.

She grinned. “Can you say that again? I’ll make sure I stand to attention this time.”

* * *

Raynie continued her campaign throughout the rest of the day. On the flimsiest of pretexts, she trotted out tired old pick-up-line after line. Stocke set his jaw and steeled his expression, and did his best to ignore her completely, or continue whatever conversation they’d been having before.

“Looking at you makes me think I must be part Satyros, I’m so horny.”

“Great legs, what time do they open?”

“Is that a carrot in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

“Hey, you work for the appraiser, right? And look at really old artifacts? ’Cause I’ve got this huge bone I need you to look at.”

“Stocke, you’re a nice guy. So if a cat fell in a rain barrel, you’d help out, right? ’Cause I’ve got a wet— hey, where are you going?”

Late in the afternoon, while he was outside taking down the now-dry clothes from the line, she disappeared briefly, only to return with a  _lucania_  baked into a breadroll – a local food-vendor’s speciality. She made appreciative noises as she ate. Midway through, she said, far too casually. “Hey, Stocke, you want a taste of my sausage?”

“….”

“You know, I went to the market to get a chicken for dinner, but they didn’t have any cocks as good as yours.”

“….”

“Did you go to the baker’s while I was out? ’Cause those are some hot buns.”

“….”

“Anyway. I’ve weeded the garden and swept up, and you took care of laundry, so… that just leaves rearranging the alphabet.” She waited, but when Stocke refused to take the bait, she plunged on anyway. “Y’see, I’m going to put U and I together.”

Stocke could not suppress a wince at Raynie’s callous abuse of the proper lexicographic ordering.

Raynie saw his reaction. “Awww, don’t worry, I’ll make sure you come first!”

“That’s not how the alphabet works, Raynie.”

“It is now!”

Stocke just glared at her, which made her grin all the wider.

“Keep this up and you’re sleeping alone tonight,” he warned her.

Raynie’s eyes danced. “Was your mom a thief?” she asked, completely undeterred. “Because I think she must’ve stolen the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes.”

“My mother died when I was five,” Stocke snapped. “I hardly remember her.”

The amusement drained out of Raynie’s expression. “I didn’t know, I’m sorr-” she began, eyes wide and worried, but Stocke pushed roughly past her and stormed out of the room.

* * *

Dinner was awkward, with neither of them saying much, and Raynie avoiding Stocke’s eyes altogether. Stocke knew she was worrying about the wrong thing — he’s been irritated, yes, but far more about the incessant, tasteless jokes than the malignment of a mother he scarcely remembered. But he wasn’t sure how to put this to Raynie, who remembered her parents all too well.

They ate in uncomfortable quiet, Stocke picking at his food, Raynie rushing to finish hers. She was up and putting things away within five minutes.

Eventually Stocke gave up on his meal – pushing bits of rice and sausage around on the plate wasn’t helping anything – and rose to his feet.

“I’ll do the dishes,” he said, which made her jump.

“Oh! Uh, no, that’s okay… I’m fine.” Raynie didn’t meet his eyes.

“I’ll dry, then?”

“‘Kay.”

They worked, again in silence, Stocke wiping plates dry as he found the shape of his words. “I’m sorry I snapped earlier.”

Raynie, standing beside him, drooped — no, relaxed. “I’m sorry I said bad things about your mom. You know I didn’t mean-”

“You didn’t know. It’s fine.” Stocke paused. “Although, in my defense, they were very bad jokes.”

“But that’s what makes them so great!” Raynie replied, her grin a little forced. She handed him the skillet. “Here’s the last one.”

He saw her watching closely as he dried the skillet and returned it to its usual home on the small stove.

“So. Uh. Am I still sleeping alone tonight?”

“Hmm?”

She moved closer, circling him with her arms. “Well, you did say that if I kept it up, I’d be sleeping alone.“

“Hmm…“ Stocke pretended to consider the question carefully. “Well-”

Raynie leaned forward and pressed a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Weelllll?”

He returned her kiss, drawing his own arms around her waist. “Well.”

The kisses and touches that followed were slow and careful. There was something of a question in them —  _are we okay now, are we normal now_. Then Raynie leaned into him, or he into her, and Stocke knew from her sudden, stifled moan and his own rising, lazy hunger that the answer was yes.

Raynie walked him back to the bed, backwards and sideways, until both their shins were bumping the low mattress.

They took their time removing clothes, more for the pleasure in drawing things out than the complexity of the task. Civilian life meant civilian dress, or at least a reasonable approximation of it — Raynie still wore trousers, and Stocke felt underdressed without at least three knives on his person — and so the troublesome belts and buckles of their first encounters were largely absent.

“Don’t shove them under the bed this time,” Stocke chided as Raynie stepped out of her pants.

“But they get in the way if they’re on the floor.”

“There’s an obvious solution to that-” Stocke began. Raynie grinned, wrapped her arms around his neck, kissed him, and then gently pushed until he sank back onto the bed.

When they stopped to breathe, and shift into a more comfortable position, Stocke added, mildly, “I meant putting them in the basket.”

“Nah, takes too long,” Raynie replied, distractedly, and then she sank down on him and he forgot to care about the laundry. She rode him lazily, and he closed his eyes, and for a while there was nothing for Stocke but their bodies, warmth and together and moving in growing pleasure.

When he felt himself groaningly close, he opened his eyes. “Raynie, I—” he managed. “I’m-”

She leaned down, a delighted grin on her face, and he half expected – needed – her to kiss him.

But she stopped, a handspan between their faces. “Come here often?” she asked. For good measure she waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Stocke blinked, then scowled. “Get off.”

She continued to grin down at him. “That’s the idea!”

“No. I mean, get off of me, we’re done.”

Raynie was still shaking with laughter as she rolled off and sprawled beside him on their bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaannd my streak of blueballing Stocke and Raynie continues, sort of? At least they got their clothes off this time...
> 
> This exercise in sophomoric humor would not exist except for the encouragement/tolerance of two individuals who most likely wish to remain anonymous, so they can pretend they had nothing to do with it.


End file.
